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Wireless Problems Solved with New Router

June 7, 2010 By

Readers of my online newsletter will remember Bev’s problems of several weeks ago. Bev upgraded to Windows 7 Home. However, she was no longer able to get to Pogo.com to play games…

I had corresponded with Bev and made sure she had updated to the latest verison of Java (from www.java.com). But, Bev continued to have problems.

My last request to Bev had been that she write to tell me how she ultimately solved the proble.

This week, she wrote back to report that the problem was solved — and in a way that was quite surprising to me:

Hi Terry, Just wanted to update you on my Pogo.com issue that I wrote you about.

I ended up talking to Microsoft and they remotely assisted but after two days they couldn’t resolve the problem, called Linksys who wasn’t any help as router is outdated, called Pogo and they didn’t have any answer and called my ISP.

I finally called my friend who is super busy as computer tech and he did a few things like trying to download update firmware for my router of which wasn’t available any longer and his last fix worked, buy a new router as Windows 7 did not like my old router. So he had me buy a Netgear WNR2000-100NAS.

I did the switch and setup all by myself as their setup disc is so simple and by golly everything is working great besides being fast router for desktop as well. Thank you Terry for all your help, you are a trooper for sure. Happy Thanksgiving early.

The solution was surprising, but perhaps should not have been. Linksys has had a lot of versions upgrading and improving their WRT54G router that Bev used. Her’s was about …

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Filed Under: Communications, Networking, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Wireless

Internet Explorer 8 Beta problem

April 20, 2009 By

Reader Herman Barnes wrote to comment and ask about problems with the beta version of Internet Explorer 8:

Thanks for a great site. Ihave IE8 beta on winXP. My favorites star button won’t open. Star depresses like it’s going to to something but nothing happens. Recent activity were uninstall Norton Security and install AVG. Any ideas? Thanks..

I wrote back to Herman to tell him that I’m not using the IE8 beta and can’t provide any help on it. I seldomly use beta software, whether Microsoft’s o r from other companies.

Remember that beta software is software that is released in the hopes that users will find and report bugs. It is not perfect, is not a "release candidate" nor final version, and often has known bugs that simply haven’t been fixed yet.

Whether from Microsoft or other companies, you should not have any expectation that beta software’s known bugs have been fixed — whether they are functional or security bugs. There’s a reason that beta software licenses are even more emphatic in their disclaimer of any warranty and disclaimer of any damages that they may cause to your data or your system.

If it doesn’t work correctly, report it. If it bothers you, uninstall the beta software and go back to the current version.

Now, of course, IE 8 has been released as a regular download — it’s no longer a beta. The next rumors are that Microsoft will issue Internet Explorer 8 as a Critical Update for Windows XP and as an Important Update for Windows Vista.

Filed Under: IE, Terry's Computer Tips, Web browsing, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Home Networking — Wired + Wireless Connections

February 17, 2009 By

The simplest way to set up a home network, including both computers with wired connections and computers with wireless connections, is to set up a wireless router immediately following your DSL modem or Cable modem. Sometimes, a DSL modem even has the router built into it.

In this setup, all the computers are assigned their IP addresses by the DHCP server that is built into the router. All are on the same logical network. However, their ability to share files, printers, and otherwise communicate between each other will depend on your settings in each computer.

In order to share files, you have to tell Windows (or Linux, etc.) to enable file and printer sharing, identify which directories should be shared, and have the computers on the same Windows Workgroup (or Windows domain, if you’re a very advanced user running a Windows domain controller). You’ll also have to tell the firewall programs on each computer to allow the sharing with the other computers — or the firewall will block the data.

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Filed Under: Networking, Performance Tweaks, Security, Security Issues, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Acronis Releases New Acronis True Image Home 2009

January 21, 2009 By

Acronis has now released their latest version of their hard drive backup utility — Acronis True Image Home 2009. We had some hints that something was coming. The new version is here…but do we need it?

First, what’s an image backup and why should I use one?

Tech Tip
An “image backup” is effectively your own “recovery disk” or “recovery partition”, complete with all your installed programs and data files, too. You can back up onto DVD’s, to external hard drives, to other computers, to another partition on the same hard drive, or to another hard drive in the same computers. Of course, not all of these destinations provide the same level of reliability — if you back up to another partition on the same hard drive, it can save you from a “brain freeze” problem, but not from a hard drive failure!

Some image backup programs can work only with the entire partition, either backing up or restoring the whole partition. Other programs can back up entire partitions, and can also back up only the files that changed since the last full backup. Similarly, some can restore entire partitions, and are also able to restore individual files and folders of files from the backup file.

I’ve used disk imaging for system backups for my computers since about 1995, starting with DriveImage 2 from the former PowerQuest. Ultimately PowerQuest Corporation was purchased by Symantec in 2003, who used Drive Image 7 as the basis of its next Norton Ghost version.

Continue reading Acronis Releases New Acronis True Image Home 2009

Filed Under: Backups, Hard Drive Recovery, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows Vista, Windows XP

New articles at Terry’s Computer Tips

December 30, 2008 By

There are a bunch of new articles at Terry’s Computer Tips:

Filed Under: Communications, Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Networking, Software, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows Vista, Windows XP